Today, I intend to correct my dilettantish ways and point out a few ways you might do something seemingly remarkable: pay a company a reasonable sum every month for good access to their data pipes, along with their voice network and basically-free-to-them text messages, without committing to a two-year agreement. And do that with a phone that isn't something that wouldn't sell from last year's bargain bin. We're talking iPhones, Nexus devices, top-of-the-line gear that you buy yourself.

This week, I'm focusing on two nation-wide, third-party services. Next week, I'll dig into the carriers' own pay-as-you-go smartphone offerings.

Straight Talk is perhaps the most interesting plan I had never heard of. Immediately after writing about Verizon’s $60/month 3G plan, I heard from a savvy friend, Dan DeFelippi, about how he’s enjoying very nice data speeds, for $45 per month, with no data cap, no contract, and country-wide roaming, on a best-in-class Nexus 4.

Straight Talk is a brand of Tracfone, sold only online or through Walmart. Generally speaking, you can bring any unlocked GSM phone (that is, any phone ready for T-Mobile or AT&T in the U.S.) to Straight Talk, or bring an iPhone built for AT&T's network. "Unlocked" means, at this time, a phone you bought for the full price, not subsidized and under contract, or which a carrier has unlocked for you. Unlocking phones yourself, using third-party tools, is currently something close to illegal. You can buy unlocked and GSM-ready phones through Google, Apple, Amazon's marketplace, and other new and used sources.

If Sprint or Verizon rule the skies where you live, or you have a CDMA (Sprint or Verizon) phone you want to bring to Straight Talk, you'll want to browse Straight Talk's site and enter your ZIP code to see if coverage is provided where you live. And everybody looking into Straight Talk should read the FAQ on Howard Forums-Updated-8-16-2012), and

Ting: A clever, Sprint-centered option

Contrary to Straight Talk, I had heard of Ting before, as Ting has purchased more than a few readings from Leo Laporte on This Week in Google. The pitch is based on simplicity: pay for what you actually use, adjust your allowances on the fly as you use more or less, and share your data (tether or "hotspot"), because you pay for it.

The main catch is that Ting is centered around the Sprint data network, which is not the most widespread of the big four carriers, at least in terms of faster 4G/LTE capacity. You can roam on voice calls through MetroPCS and Verizon, but for data, you're reliant on Sprint. And you can't just bring any old Sprint-capable phone to Ting, as they make a few modifications to them. A bring-your-own-device plan was announced in August, and Ting now supports bringing a Galaxy Nexus S to their plans, and that's a humble start. On the flip side, really nice, new phones like the Samsung Galaxy S3 are available for non-subsidized purchase.